


For Want of a Lottery

by Labrys



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, brief mentions of violence, let sirius black raise his godson, no worse than the canon violence in cos or poa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 14:05:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8581417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Labrys/pseuds/Labrys
Summary: What might've happened if Arthur won the money for that trip to Egypt one summer earlier.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a thought exercise for what might've happened if one *tiny* detail from canon had been changed. Enjoy!

Arthur wins the money for that trip to Egypt one summer earlier.

Lockhart is still the incompetent DADA professor that he is. Dobby still stops Harry’s mail. The Weasley’s picture still makes it into the paper. Sirius Black escapes Azkaban a year earlier. Harry doesn’t hear about it until after he’s rescued by the Weasleys, but he does notice a bear of a black dog that stalks around the neighborhood and growls at Uncle Vernon especially viciously when Harry has been kept in his room for days on end.

Ginny still gets the diary. 

Dobby doesn’t manage to block the entrance to the platform. Dementors still board the train, and everyone thinks it’s a sheer miracle that no one was terribly hurt. The Opening Feast is quiet, even before the announcement that the Dementors will be guarding the grounds all year. Madame Pomfrey forces Harry to stay in the Infirmary over night. When Harry wakes up in the middle of the night, he thinks he sees the black dog from Privet Drive slink out of the room, but he gets distracted by classes the next day and forgets to mention it.

The Chamber of Secrets is still opened, and children are still being petrified. 

Between the petrifications and the attack on the Fat Lady, it’s not long before teachers are escorting students back and forth to classes and common rooms and a strict curfew is enforced. Qudditch is canceled, despite Oliver Wood’s intense protesting, because of the fear of whatever is putting the students in danger and because of the Dementors’ eagerness to watch the game, too.

After Hermione is petrified, Hagrid is taken to Azkaban. He still gives Harry and Ron the tip about following the spiders. This time, instead of a wild Ford Anglia, Sirius Black bursts into the acromantula nest, flinging curses and hexes from a wand he “borrowed” off of a particularly forgetful first year.

How they actually manage to outrun the eight-legged monsters is anyone’s guess.

When they escape the Forbidden Forrest, Dementors are swarming on the horizon. Sirius manages to conjure a weak-looking patronus, and yells for the boys to follow him. Harry recognizes the black dog Sirius turns into as he dives under the branches of the Whomping Willow and hits the knot that freezes it.

As soon as they clear the trap door that leads into the Shrieking Shack, Harry and Ron’s wands were trained on Sirius. “Harry,” Sirius begins, voice rough from disuse, “and Ron, isn’t it? Don’t do anything too permanent, just yet.”

“And why shouldn’t we?” Ron’s voice booms in the quiet of the dusty room, “Everyone knows you’ve been after Harry all year!”

“I–,” began Sirius

“No,” Harry quietly interrupts.

“What?”

“If he’d been after me all this time, he could have already done whatever he was planning! He’s been following me since the summer, but if you’re not after me,” Harry rushes, trying to put the pieces together as he goes and coming to the entirely wrong solution, “then you must be the one that’s opening the Chamber of Secrets!”

“Stupefy!”

As the spell rushes toward them, Ron and Harry jump out of the way and fire their own spells haphazardly over their shoulders. Sirius’s spell hits its target and he lets out a singular bark-like laugh.

“You–,” Ron looks as shell-shocked as Harry feels, “you stunned my RAT?”

“This is no ordinary rat,” Sirius growls with a predatory look on his face. “This is a man named Peter Pettigrew, and now, I’m going to commit the murder I was put in prison for in the first place.”

“You’re mad,” Ron cries, grabbing hold of his pet. “Scabbers is just a rat!”

Sirius shoots another spell at the unconscious rat and all of them watch as it changes into the body of Peter Pettigrew. “There! You see! If he was just a rat, that spell wouldn’t have had any effect! Now, stand aside!”

“Wait,” Harry says as Ron steps back with a horrified look on his face. “We can’t just let you kill someone! Who even is this–this Peter whoever?”

Sirius growls in frustration and uses a spell that ties Pettigrew up tightly. Then, Sirius tells the story of the Marauders and Pettigrew’s betrayal. By the time that he is done and Harry and Ron have stopped asking questions, the sun appears over the horizon.

Harry manages to convince Sirius that it would be better to turn Pettigrew in and be acquitted rather than be returned to Azkaban for finally committing murder, no matter how long overdue it is.

They decide that it would make the most sense for Sirius to return to the castle as Padfoot to avoid grabbing the attention of the Dementors and to avoid alarming anyone who might see him. Harry and Ron float Pettigrew up to the castle and into the Entrance Hall. Checking to see if any of the professors are in the Great Hall turns out to be an excellent idea, as they find McGonagall enjoying an early breakfast.

Professor McGonagall comes out into the Entrance Hall prepared to berate the two boys for being out of bounds, but she stops short when she spots Pettigrew.

Ron and Harry both decide not to repeat what she says next.

All of them spend the rest of the morning in meetings with people of a more or less official nature, while Harry and Ron explain what had happened the night before in as much detail as they could remember and avoid mentioning where Sirius might have gone or why they suddenly have a large dog that absolutely refuses to leave their sides.

McGonagall escorts them to lunch, but not before she tells them that they do, in fact, have detention for being out of bounds all night.

The next morning, when the Prophet comes in, it announces that Peter Pettigrew has been found and is under questioning for the deaths of James and Lily Potter, that Sirius Black will be pardoned as quickly as the process will allow, and that the Dementors were to be removed from Hogwarts’s grounds, effective immediately. 

Once Sirius finds a flat in London, he sends an owl to Harry to ask if he would like to stay for the summer. Harry writes back with whole-hearted enthusiasm. He would love to stay for as long as Sirius would have him.

When Harry ends up in Dumbledore’s office after the incident with the basilisk, he finds Sirius there, panicked but looking much healthier overall, along with the Weasleys.

At the platform, Sirius tells Harry that he would love to take him to London, now, but he can’t. He says that he will explain why in two weeks, when he comes to pick Harry up.

Disappointed, Harry says goodbye to his godfather and goes to greet the Dursleys.

Two weeks pass without incidence. Harry manages to escape to Sirius’s flat a few days before Aunt Marge is due to arrive. When they get to London, Sirius introduces Harry to Remus, and they spend the first night talking about Harry’s parents. The next night, Sirius explains about the blood protection that Harry’s life with the Dursleys provides and that two weeks was the minimum anyone thought it would take to reinforce that protection.

Harry gets to have his first ever birthday party at the Burrow with the Weasleys, Hermione, Sirius, and Remus.

Hermione, Ron, and Harry spend a lot of time alternating between homes that summer. When they find out that Remus is going to be the new Defense professor, they decide to spend their free time this year figuring out how to break a curse that they weren’t even sure existed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
